Rivian v. Perdue
Is Opposition to an EV Truck Plant Pure Politics, or Simply Rural Preservation?
By Todd Lassa
Unless numerous polls are way off the mark, Gov. Brian Kemp takes Georgia’s GOP primary Tuesday with more than 50% to face Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams, whom he very narrowly beat for the job in the 2018 elections. The latest Fox News poll of the GOP primary has Kemp leading former U.S. Sen. David Perdue.
Donald J. Trump pressured Perdue to challenge Kemp for the nomination because the popular incumbent failed to help turn over the state’s Electoral College votes for him, but he has since backed off his support of Perdue for fear of backing a “loser.” The latest Fox News poll shows Kemp leading Perdue 60% to 28%, with the remainder split between two other GOP candidates (under Georgia’s election laws, there is a runoff if the leader gets less than 50% of the vote).
Kemp probably added a few votes from the Savannah area to his lead last Friday when he announced on his website that Georgia had landed a $5.54-billion all-electric vehicle and battery plant to be built by Hyundai Motors about 25 miles west of the coastal city, on a plot of land called the Bryan County Megasite.
The Hyundai deal comes just half a year after Kemp announced a $5-billion plant near Rutledge, about 45 miles east of Atlanta, by startup electric truckmaker Rivian.
States’ governors love to announce such deals, especially in an election year. Of course, these deals always come with generous incentive packages offering tax breaks, free land and promises to build and rebuild roads and other infrastructure. Little more than a week before Kemp’s Hyundai announcement the Georgia Department of Economic Development announced its Rivian incentives consisting of a $1.5-billion incentive package to build an assembly plant that would employ 7,500 at an average of $55,000 per year. It will build up to 400,000 vehicles per year at full capacity.
Who would oppose 7,500 jobs in a factory that will build clean energy-powered modern trucks and SUVs (from a startup that many auto analysts see as the next Tesla, sans Elon Musk)?
Indeed, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reported in a story about Georgia clinching a deal in 2019 with an automotive battery manufacturer about 50 miles north of the Rivian site that the company, SK Innovation “could cement Georgia’s place as the Southeastern U.S. hub for the electric battery and vehicle market.”
But residents of the counties encompassing the 20-million square-foot Rivian facility -- Morgan, Walton, Newton and Jasper -- did. They fear environmental degredation of their “pristine countryside surrounded by the beautiful small towns of Madison, Rutledge, Social Circle, and many others,” according to the No to Rivian! website [no2rivian.org, “Save our small town, rural life and natural environment”], which created the Facebook page, Our Communities Oppose Rivian Assembly Plant December 11, 2021, five days before the date of Kemp’s official announcement per his website. The private Facebook page lists 3,300 members.
The opponents are particularly concerned about the area’s water supply. “The country is on wells as we do not have a water system, and the Rivian factory will sit on the most crucial portion of our valuable groundwater recharge area,” says No to Rivian! President JoEllen Artz, via email.
Bruce Altznauer, mayor of Rutledge, Georgia, which is adjacent to the Rivian site told me in an interview for a May 6 story in Autoweek [https://www.autoweek.com/news/a39925587/rivian-georgia-incentive-deal/] that opposition amounted to fewer than a dozen residents of his town, which has a population under 900.
“I really believe they are in the minority,” Altznauer, a strong proponent of the Rivian factory, says. “They always say ‘we want progress, but we don’t want change.’” The locals like to say; “What’s in Rutledge? Nothing. And we like it that way.”
Perdue took up the cause of opponents to the Rivian plant, saying in a statement issued last March that; “Kemp thought he could get away with this under the guise of ‘economic development’, but all he is doing here is selling us out and lining George Soros’ pockets.”
This cranked up the heat in the gubernatorial race, with Trump’s candidate claiming that Soros, the left-wing billionaire “bogeyman” to the right had become a major investor in the EV truckmaker.
Asked whether Perdue’s campaign sparked No to Rivian! opposition, Artz says; “Actually, opposition influenced David Perdue. He might not have been aware of the big governmental give-away if it weren’t for us. Kemp has done nothing but buy votes this spring.” Perdue has since come to her community “twice to hold rallies in support of our opposition.”
But if Perdue’s anti-Soros rhetoric might seem a dog whistle to the left side of the political spectrum, it doesn’t appear to be a major point to the Perdue campaign or to the Rivian plant opponents. As it turns out, Soros’ investment in Rivian is far from influential. CNN Money says that as of March Soros Fund Management was the sixth-largest investment firm holding Rivian stock, with 19.8 million shares, or 2.22%.
T. Rowe Price & Associates is the largest shareholder, at 162.8 million shares, or 18.24% while online retailer Amazon, which will buy electric delivery vans from Rivian, holds 162 million shares, according to CNBC. Ford Motor Company, which at one time had planned to partner with Rivian in EV truck development in May sold 8 million of its 102 million shares.
What happens to No to Rivian! if Kemp wins at least 50% of the GOP vote in Tuesday’s primary and avoids a runoff with Perdue? The EV maker’s deal with Georgia is virtually signed and sealed, and the company hopes to break ground on the plant this summer.
I asked JoEllen Artz, the group’s president, what she thought about the even bigger Hyundai EV plant just announced, and whether it won’t be subject to local opposition because the site is part of the less-bucolic Bryan County Megasite. Artz replied that she tried to convince Gov. Kemp to move the proposed Rivian plant there and got “nice but forceful feedback from people in the region that they don’t want Rivian either.”
Perhaps it is all about the Rivian site’s bucolic landscape after all, and not politics.
•••
Read The Hustings at https://thehustings.news